CO:ntent Blog

“Support local change,” “increase rigor and equity,” and “grow the movement.” These are three things that one would see when first opening the CSforAll webpage. The CSforAll Consortium is a effort started by the National Science Foundation to make computer science accessible for all students nationwide. Recently, the organization has added Dev Catalyst, a program of theCO, as a new consortium member alongside big tech companies like Google, Dell, Facebook, and Teach For America.

During the start of the 2017-2018 school year, high school students began applying to theCO’s Dev Catalyst program, a curriculum designed to cultivate and grow the abilities of students with technological talents in the greater West Tennessee area. Throughout the course of the program, nearly 800 students participated in one of three categories (Novice Web Development, Advanced Web Development, and Data Development) in order to learn teamwork skills, develop professional skills, network with tech professionals, and hopefully win the grand prize trip to San Francisco, California.

Dev Catalyst is committed to preparing high school students for profitable careers in technology-based fields, such as advanced manufacturing.

According to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, over the last five years, Tennessee has ranked in the Top 10 for the largest percentage increase in the United States in manufacturing GDP, which reached $49.1 billion in 2016, making it 17% of the state’s total GDP. Advanced manufacturing job creation in Tennessee, in particular, far outpaces the rate of national growth.

Technology has revolutionized the manufacturing industry. The incorporation of robots on the assembly line has led to quicker, more efficient production. Companies have also streamlined the manufacturing and production process by using computer-aided design software.

At the beginning of the school year, Molly Plyler’s five- and seven-year-old daughters were asking for a new computer. So she gave them a Raspberry Pi, keyboard, and monitor and told them that if they could figure out how to put it together, it would be their school computer. In less than fifteen minutes, the seven-year-old had her computer running.

“It’s kind of a skill that’s lost,” said Plyler, who runs Dev Catalyst, theCO’s student program that aims to improve technology education. “If you go back to the 80s, when you were working with a computer, there was some command-line code that you were kind of used to because that’s how the computer worked, and now we give kids an iPad, and there’s very little understanding of how it works or what it looks like on the inside.”

Raspberry Pis are mini-computers that are relatively inexpensive, costing about $35. Dev Catalyst is currently offering workshops for middle and high school students that teach how to use a Raspberry Pi.

This summer, four Dev Catalyst students took on Jackson-Madison County Library’s Big Read website. Students from schools across West Tennessee were hand-selected to develop the official website for the project, an effort to get the nation reading.

Steven Prescott is a standout alumnus of Dev Catalyst. Prescott began the program in 2013 under Vicki Deloach’s computer class at Madison Academic Magnet High School. The program was new to both West Tennessee and Prescott, but the product of a semester of work would lead to lifelong impacts.

Dev Catalyst was a brainchild of the founders at theCO who noticed a need for educational development.

Jackson, Tennessee, along with seventy-two other communities across the nation, is a TechHire city. But what does that mean? For CO:member and local business owner Austin Thompson and theCO’s Dev Catalyst program, it means an opportunity to create opportunity for young tech talent in the area.﻿

The TechHire initiative was created by the Obama Administration in 2015. The project, however, lives on today. Its main mission is to support the growing technology fields in the nation. Cities selected have shown dedication to supporting training for technology-related jobs and companies that strive to create a more diverse workplace. The initiative is currently under Opportunity@Work, a nonprofit organization designed to empower Americans in today's economic world.

Early College High is leading the way in developing skills worth hiring in today’s tech era. Linda Thomason’s computer coding class is something special. High school students are acquiring an indescribable desire for code through Dev Catalyst, a technology education program offered by theCO.

Liberty Tech students were peacefully assembled together, awaiting their latest creation around a laser engraver in the school’s makerspace. Written on a sheet of paper next to the laser were the dimensions for a pegboard with a purpose.

“We're working on pegboards for therapists to help kids with disabilities ,” Liberty manufacturing science student Austin Vande Zande explained, “[to] strengthen their hands and have them be more hands-on. ”